This short recital of penalties to come was simple and ludicrous enough in its own matter, but duly enforced by Isaac’s horrid shrugs and hideous grimaces, as well as by the iron clutch with which he dug his firm-gripped fingers, nails and all, deep into her flesh, to emphasise his prediction, it affected the superstitious negro girl a thousand times more than the most deliberately awful civilised imprecation could possibly have done. ‘You doan’t would do dat, Isaac,’ she cried all breathless, struggling in vain to free her arm from the fierce grip that held it resistlessly—‘you doan’t would do dat, me fren’. You doan’t would come when you is duppy to haunt me an’ to frighten me!’ ‘I would!’ Isaac answered firmly, with close-pressed lips, inhuman mulatto-fashion (for when there is a demon in the mulatto nature, it is a demon more utterly diabolical than any known to either white men or black men: it combines the dispassionate intellectual power of the one with the low cunning and savage moral code of the other). ‘I would hound you to deat’, Rosie, an’ kill you witout pity. For if you tell de missy about dis, dem will cut your fren’ all up into little pieces, I tellin’ you, le-ady.’ ‘Doan’t call me le-ady,’ Rosina said, melting at the formal address and seizing his hand penitently: ‘call me Rosie, call me Rosie. O Isaac, I doan’t will tell de missy, if you doan’t like; but you promise me for true you nebber gwine to take missy an’ kill him.’ Isaac smiled again the sinister smile. ‘I promise,’ he said, with a curious emphasis; ‘I doan’t gwine to _kill_ him, Rosie! When I take him, I no will _kill_ him!’ Rosina hesitated a moment, then she asked shortly: ‘What day you tink Delgado gwine at last to hab him risin’?’ The mulatto laughed a scornful little laugh of supreme mockery. ‘Delgado’s risin’!’ he cried, with a sneer—‘Delgado’s risin’! You tink, den, Rosie, dis is Delgado’s risin’! You tink we gwine to risk our own life, black men an’ brown men, so make Delgado de king ob Trinidad! Ha, ha, ha! dat is too good, now. No, no, me fren’; dis doan’t at all Delgado’s risin’! You tink we gwine to hand ober de whole island to a pack ob common contemptful naygur fellow! Ha, ha, ha! Le-ady doan’t nebber understand politic an’ political business. _Hé_, Rosie, I tell you de trut’; when we kill de buckra clean out ob de island, I gwine meself to be de chief man in all Trinidad!’ And as he spoke, he drew himself up proudly to his full height, and put one hand behind his back in his most distinguished and magnificent attitude. Rosina looked up at him with profound admiration. ‘You is clebber gentleman for certain, Isaac,’ she cried in unfeigned reverence for his mental superiority. ‘You let Delgado make de naygur rise; den, when dem done gone risen, you gwine to eat de chestnut yourself him pull out ob de fire witout burn your fingers!’